Insurance. Social Security is a social insurance program, not a welfare program. And like any insurance program, it's designed to pay benefits when an insured event happens: A car accident. A plane flight you had to cancel at the last minute. Your retirement. Insurance programs aren't "means tested." If you've paid your premium and the insured event takes place, you receive the benefit. And Samuelson's argument that you should get back exactly what you put in is shown to be ludicrous when the proper word is used. I haven't "gotten back what I paid in" on my car insurance. And I could die without ever collecting Social Security benefits. I'm not being ripped off, I'm being protected.
Since he couldnt be bothered to look up the definition of the word, Samuelson just made up his own: "Here is how I define a welfare program," he writes. "First, it taxes one group to support another group, meaning it's pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people's own savings pay their later benefits. And second, Congress can constantly alter benefits ..." Leaving aside the misleading statement that Social Security "taxes one group to pay another," what else could be considered "welfare" under the making-sh*t-up" Samuelson definition? Let's see ... Military paychecks. The President's salary. The Senate dining room. The coffee they serve when junior Cabinet members meet with members of the press.
Yes, Samuelson's argument is that absurd, and the pejorative overtones of the word "absurd" are deliberate.Robert Samuelson's essentially calling the American middle class, whose pension plan was funded through a government-managed trust fund, "welfare queens."
Contempt.
Stupid. Greedy. Teat-Sucking.
"You've got a country that is stupid, a government that is stupid," said the always-quotable Alan Simpson today. What's so stupid about us? Here's Simpson's explanation: "... (W)e're always talking about the couple at the kitchen table--well, here it is: For every buck we spend, we borrow forty cents. If that isn't stupid--we've got a country that is stupid, a government that is stupid, to borrow forty cents, not from your good old uncle Henry, but from the world."
We've already dissected the lame analogy that says our country's spending is like a family's budget. It isn't - not even a little. But what really expresses Simpson's contempt for the American public is this: The set of personal suggestions he put together with Erskine Bowles (after the Deficit Commission they co-chaired collapsed into deadlock and failure) actually proposes lowering the maximum income tax rate for for wealthy individuals and corporations. Like Boehner, Simpson thinks he's found a bunch of suckers he can hoodwink in the American middle class.
For the record, Simpson's first name really is "Alan" and not "Abe," although he shares the Simpsons character's tendency to go off on foul-mouthed, insulting rants (in what's an arguably ageist characterization). It was Abe - sorry, I mean Alan Simpson who sneered at the entire population of the United States by saying government programs were like "a cow with 310 million t*ts." (That makes every one of us a "teat sucker.") It was Simpson who insulted a representative for women - and a lot of other women, too - after she wrote about his comment. It was Simpson who called elderly Americans "greedy geezers." It was Simpson who screamed at a female reporter in the 1990's (she screamed back) and went off on an activist in a now-famous profanity-ridden video tantrum.
And it's Simpson who has now insulted younger Americans - the ones who would be most hurt by his draconian anti-Social Security proposals - with another logorrheic rant, this one against young Americans who, he says, are "walking on their pants with the cap on backwards listening to the enema man (presumably meaning Eminem) and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg."
It's not funny anymore - not that it ever was. The typical DC elite's response - "Oh, Alan's being Alan again" - doesn't cut it. This is vile, contemptible, hate-filled behavior with creepy scatological overtones. The crowd that loathes bloggers for the rude language of anonymous commenters embraces Simpson on a daily basis. Who in either party has said of Alan Simpson, "I can't work with somebody so unpleasant, so close-minded, so rude, so uncooperative, and who clearly holds the public in such vile disregard?"
I'll make the answer easy for you: Nobody. Such is the arrogance of the Beltway insider, and such is alienation of Washington reality from the hard work and anguish of the American middle class. A Washington culture that prides itself on "bipartisan" civility - that is, politeness to fellow members of the elite - finds Simpson's abuse of the American public perfectly acceptable.
Like I was saying: Contempt.
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